But on Saturday, just before closing-time, the King set to and made a shoe so fine that when the Lad saw it he said quietly, “I could not make a better.” Had he not said so he must have lied, or proved that he did not know a masterpiece when he saw it. And he was too good a craftsman for that, besides being honest. Pepper instantly lifted up her near hind-foot. “Upon my word!” exclaimed the King, “the world is full of stones, and Pepper has found them all. The wonder is that she did not fall down on the road.” “This is not a stone,” said the Lad, “it is an opal.” And he displayed an opal of such marvelous changeability, such milk and fire shot with such shifting rainbows, that it was as though it had had birth of all the moods of all the women of all time. “This enriches you for life,” said the Lad gloomily, “and now you are free of masters for ever.” But William thrust his hands into his pockets. “Keep it,” he said, “for this week you have given me love, and I have given you nothing but the sinews of my body.” The Lad looked at him and said, “I have given you hard words, and fits of temper, and much injustice.” “Have you?” said William. “I remember only your tenderness and your tears. So keep the opal in love’s name.” The Lad tried to answer, but could not; and he slipped the opal under his shirt. Then he faltered, “My Great-Aunt--” and still he could not speak. But he made a third effort, and said, “There is a cake in the larder,” and turned on his heel and went away quickly. And the King looked after him till he was out of sight, and then very slowly went to his bath and his fresh linen. But he left the cake where it was. And he sat by the door of the forge with his face in his hands until the length of his shadow warned him that he must go. And he rose and went for the last time up the hill, but with a sinking heart; and when he stood on the top and gazed upon the beauty of the earth he had left below, in his breast was the ache of loss and longing for one he had loved, and with his eyes he tried to draw that beauty into himself, but the void in him remained unfulfilled. Yet never had her beauty been so great. “Beloved and lovely earth!” he whispered, “why do you appear most fair and most desirable now that I am about to lose you? Why when I had you did you not hold me by force, and tell me what you were? Only now I discover you from mid-heaven--but oh! in what way should I discover you from heaven itself?” And he looked upward, and lo! a blurred sun shone upon him, swimming to its rest. But the blurring was caused by his own tears in his eyes. “Farewell, dear earth!” said the King. “Since you cannot mount to me, and I may not descend to you.” And he knelt upon the turf and laid his cheek and forehead to it, and then he rose, sealed up his lips, and passed into the Ring.